Long Beach Capitalizes as Fullerton Falters

Cal State Long Beach built a 24-0 lead and held on for a 30-20 victory over Cal State Fullerton Saturday night in a Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. game before 7,205 at Veterans Stadium in Long Beach.

Ron Knight recovered a Fullerton fumble early in the fourth quarter to halt a Titan drive and help preserve the win for Long Beach (2-2, 1-0). But, for the most part, the game’s outcome was decided long before then.

Fullerton (1-6, 0-3) has had some rather tragic first quarters this season, but Saturday’s bordered on comedy. From the opening kickoff, this was 15 minutes of material for a Football Follies film festival.

When it was over, the Titans had fumbled, stumbled, bobbled and bumbled their way to a 24-0 deficit. The 49ers needed only to enjoy the show, and take advantage of what was handed--or mishandled--to them.

Long Beach followed the lead of most Fullerton opponents in opting to kick away from Rick Calhoun on the opening kickoff, directing the ball instead to Tyrone Pope. Pope ran to his left to field the kick in the air near the Fullerton 10-yard line, but the ball bounced off his chest and back toward the Titan goal. By the time he caught up with it, Pope was buried by Long Beach tacklers at the four.

Three plays later, Titan punter Jim Sirois was kicking from beneath the goal posts. The snap was good, and Sirois got the kick away. Sirois would not be so lucky on his next two punts. On those, he needed stilts.

Long Beach took a 3-0 lead on Eric Weetman’s 38-yard field goal at the 8:56 mark before Sirois had the ball snapped over his head on successive punt attempts. The first gave Long Beach the ball on the Fullerton 22, and set up Jeff Graham’s six-yard scoring pass to Derek Washington.

The second bad snap left the ball at the Titan 27, and led to Mark Templeton’s seven-yard touchdown run.

Reserve quarterback Rich Sheriff replaced George Pritchard as the snapper on Fullerton’s next punt. Sheriff’s accurate snap drew a round of sarcastic applause from a group of Fullerton fans.

But after Graham connected with tight end Greg Locy for a 19-yard gain to the Titan 26, those fans turned their attention back to a portable television and the broadcast of the Angel game.

But after Long Beach’s Michael Robert scored on a six-yard run, Fullerton started its comeback.

A 67-yard touchdown pass from Ronnie Barber to John Gibbs with 3:02 left in the first half made it 24-7, and helped Fullerton gain a 222-164 advantage in offensive yardage in the first half, but the damage had already been done. The Titans’ special teams were anything but special.